The Auras
SMF-660 heatsink is a compact Intel heatsink that weighs just over 400 grams, stands 108mm tall,
and hides its lone fan quietly away. If you've been faced
with the problem of an ill-fitting processor heatsink for a compact PC chassis, take
comfort that sub-150mm tall CPU coolers do indeed exist.

Auras ship the SMF-660 heatsink with a 92mm PWM fan that scales
in speed from 1200-2100RPM with compatible motherboards. At its fastest speed
the fan is moderately audible. Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) fans are noted
by their 4-pin power connectors, and what PWM does is enable the BIOS to
directly control fan speed so the PC keeps itself cool under load, and decrease fan
noise when it isn't. Auras' SMF-660 TwinW heatsink utilizes three
heatpipes and special "W-shapped" aluminum fins that are intended to reduce noise as air is drawn
in from one side of the heatsink and expelled out the other. The SMF-660
heatsink is estimated to retail for about $22USD.

Auras
Technology Co. Ltd. are a ISO-9000 Taiwanese company which was established in
1998 to make OEM laptop thermal solutions for the major brands. The
company has since diversified into desktop CPU heatsinks produced under its own
brand name. In this review, Frostytech is testing out a prototype
version of the Auras SMF-660 heatsink, you can expect the results from the
retail version to not vary significantly.

While
compact in size, the Auras SMF-660 makes use of what space it occupies. The
three U-shapped 6mm diameter copper heatpipes thread their way from the base up
through the narrow towers of aluminum cooling fins. The heatsink is effectively
spit into three parts; the outer towers of aluminum fins with the "W-shape fin
design", the fan, and another tower of aluminum fins.

Air is
put to work either side of the 92mm PWM
fan, and because the fan is recessed behine the fins noise levels are
diminishsed.

Base Finish and Flatness

Flipping
a heatsink over to inspect the business end is often a simple indicator of
overall cooler quality. More practically speaking, a heatsink is in many ways
only as effective as the contact it makes with the processor - the flatter and
smoother the better. Base finish is one of the criteria that Frostytech measure
in the course of evaluating heatsinks, and it involves two distinct aspects.
Surface Finish is the first; this is calculated with the aid of Surface
Roughness Comparator that has a cross section of common machine surface finishes
and their numerical surface roughness equivalents in microinches. The second is
Surface Flatness. This is tested with an engineers straight edge or proven flat
surface, in two axis.

The base
of the Auras SMF-660 heatsink is a flat slab
of 2.5mm thick copper, to which the three heatpipes are soldered. The baseplate has been
punched out, and steel tabs rivetted to either side for the LGA775 mounting bracket. The
copper base measures 36x36mm in size and is flat in both axis.
Surface roughness is ~16 microinches or better, which is considered excellent.

FrostyTech's Test Methodologies are outlined in detail here if you care to know what equipment is
used, and the parameters under which the tests are conducted. Now let's move
forward and take a closer look at this heatsink, its acoustic characteristics,
and of course its performance in the thermal tests!